How to get into Newcastle / JMP Medicine

Newcastle / JMP expects Minimum ATAR 94.30 (85.00 if you sat Year 12 at an MM2-7 rural/remote school under the Rural Bonus Scheme), or tertiary results at roughly credit level after one full-time year of university study; no subject prerequisites.

UCAT ANZ decides who is invited; the half-day in-person JMP Assessment - a rotating-station Multiple Skills Assessment plus an online Personal Qualities Assessment - then sets the final rank. 2027 entry. for Medicine (MBBS/MD) and uses Multiple Skills Assessment (MSA) - rotating 8-minute stations (six, per the JMP's Applicant Assessment Guide) for interviews in the 2027 Entry cycle.

Entry is undergraduate and selection uses UCAT-ANZ; applications close through GEMSAS or your state TAC (UAC, VTAC, QTAC, SATAC, TISC), and CSP, BMP and full-fee places are all capped, so treat the standard above as a threshold to clear rather than a target to aim at.

This guide is written for 2027 Entry applicants and updated annually before each GEMSAS / UAC cycle. Sources include University of Newcastle / Joint Medical Program's official course page, GEMSAS, the UCAT-ANZ Consortium, ACER (GAMSAT), and direct conversations with current students. Read time: ~12 minutes.

Compiled from University of Newcastle / Joint Medical Program's published admissions material and checked for internal consistency. Not independently re-checked against the official course page for 2027 entry — confirm the figures with the school before you rely on them.

Minimum ATAR 94.30 (85.00 if you sat Year 12 at an MM2-7 rural/remote school under the Rural Bonus Scheme), or tertiary results at roughly credit level after one full-time year of university study; no subject prerequisites.

UCAT ANZ decides who is invited; the half-day in-person JMP Assessment - a rotating-station Multiple Skills Assessment plus an online Personal Qualities Assessment - then sets the final rank. 2027 entry.

Year 12 ATAR (or equivalent international qualification) plus the admission test are the academic gateway; interview performance then determines the final offer.

UCAT-ANZ is a 2-hour computer-based aptitude test (Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, and a separately-banded Situational Judgement Test). Sat between July and early August. The UCAT-ANZ Consortium operates separately from the UK UCAT — scores are NOT interchangeable.

Australia has no equivalent of the UK's single UCAS personal statement. GEMSAS graduate-entry applications use GAMSAT + GPA without a written component; most state-TAC undergraduate applications use ATAR + UCAT-ANZ without a written component. The schools that DO require written content (JCU portfolio, Notre Dame Sydney/Fremantle questionnaire, Wollongong short answers, Bond essays) each ask different, school-specific questions. Treat each school's prompt set as a discrete short-answer test - do not recycle a single document across multiple schools.

Limits are school-specific. JCU portfolio responses: typically 250-500 words per question. Notre Dame questionnaire: 250-400 words per response. Wollongong short answers: ~300 words each. Bond essays: 500 words. Read the current cycle's prompt brief for each school carefully - limits and prompts shift cycle-to-cycle.

Notice: a specific scene rather than a cliché, a precise detail (the nine-minute conversation), and a closing sentence that bridges to the next paragraph. We have a step-by-step written-submissions service if you want a tutor to help shape yours.

Newcastle / JMP uses Multiple Skills Assessment (MSA) - rotating 8-minute stations (six, per the JMP's Applicant Assessment Guide). For 2027 entry, interviews typically take place in Late November - early December (30 Nov - 11 Dec 2026 for 2027 entry); mid-January 2027 for interstate non-rural applicants, and w/c 11 Jan 2027 for Excellence through Equity and Regional Excellence Pathway applicants. Invitations go out early-to-mid November. International applicants sit the MSA online 30 Sep - 2 Oct 2026.. Final decisions are released January (UAC Round 1, offer information 8 Jan 2027; a later January round for applicants assessed in mid-January). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants receive offers in UAC December Round 2..

At Newcastle / JMP, expect the following from the selection process. Assessment / recorded-interview format - some Australian schools (JCU's Kira Talent recording, Notre Dame Modern Hire) ask one-way recorded responses; others combine panel interviews with practical tasks (group work, written exercises, presentations). Allow 60-90 minutes for a recorded interview or 4-6 hours for a full in-person assessment day.

The JMP Assessment is a half-day, in-person session held at the University of Newcastle (Callaghan) or the University of New England (Armidale) - you nominate a preferred location on the direct application, allocation is not guaranteed, and it has no bearing on where you enrol.

It has two parts sat on the same day: the Multiple Skills Assessment, rotating eight-minute stations (six, per the JMP's Applicant Assessment Guide, with a two-minute break between each) where you discuss scenarios or undertake activities with an assessor; and the Personal Qualities Assessment, an online test the JMP says you 'aren't required or advised to prepare for'.

The four published MSA domains are capacity to thrive in the JMP learning environment, ability to make decisions without certainty of the outcome, interpersonal and communication skills, and drive to be a doctor. International applicants sit the MSA online via Zoom; the PQA is used only where the MSA is conducted face-to-face.

Our panel-interview prep covers ethics frameworks (SPIES, the four pillars), structured behavioural answers (STAR), and live mock interviews with admissions specialists.

The cycle runs roughly January 2025 (start of prep) through GEMSAS preference lock and state-TAC deadlines in September 2026, MMIs in October-December 2026, to first-round offers in December 2026 and course start in late January / early February 2027. Here are the milestones you cannot miss.

The Joint Medical Program is delivered jointly by the University of Newcastle and the University of New England, but admission is administered at Newcastle through one common process: a direct JMP application plus a single UAC preference (code 785000). You nominate a preferred enrolment location, and there is no guarantee you get it. The program targets a minimum 30% rural or remote background intake (33 places at Newcastle, 18 at UNE) and sets aside up to 17 places a year for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants. Invitation to the assessment day is decided on the UCAT ANZ aggregate alone; the final selection rank then comes from assessment-day performance, with UCAT used only to break ties.

170 places a year across the JMP (UoN + UNE combined) for more than 3,000 applicants. The JMP publishes no BMP count of its own; the national 28.5% rule for commencing medical CSPs would imply roughly 48. International places sit outside the 170.